Wider Genetic Affiliations of the Chinese Language
追溯汉语更远古的语源
John D. Bengtson

Abstract 摘要
The ancestry of the Chinese language is still a topic of vigorous debate. (See Wang, ed.,1995). In my own research, I find the immediate affiliation with Tibeto-Burman to be the most probable, i.e., that Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language. Beyond that horizon, I accept the more distant affiliation of Chinese (and Sino-Tibetan in general) with Sino-Caucasian (or Dene-Caucasian: see Starostin, 1995). However, Dene-Caucasian properly consists of more language families than just Sino-Tibetan, Caucasian, and Yeniseian, the languages cited by Starostin. This paper brings in additional evidence from the other Dene-Caucasian languages, namely Basque, Burushaski, and Na-Dene. It will be shown that this supplemental evidence sheds additional light on the deep ancestry of the Chinese language.

汉语语源的问题一直是热烈争论的题目。(参看王士元1995)在研究中,我发现汉语和藏缅语有直接关系,及汉语是汉藏语中的一种语言。我还同意在汉藏语以外,汉-高加索语族(或者Dene-高加索语族,参看Starostin 1995)是汉语(一般地讲,包括和汉藏语系语言)更远的来源。但是,Dene-高加索语族的内容不只限于Starostin所提到的汉语语系,高加索语系和 Yeniseian 语系。本文根据 Dene-高加索语族中另外几种语言的材料,即巴斯克语,Buru-shaski 语和 Na-Dene 语的材料,为汉语具有更远古的语源关系提供了进一步的线索。

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Journal of Chinese Linguistics   volume 27 (ISSN 0091-3723)
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